Lila Loa

How to Make Decorated Apple Bushel Cookies

Oh my goodness. Do you even remember the time I lived in another country? I feel like it was YEARS ago!! To be fair, it was at least two CookieCons ago. Which is basically an eternity. If we've only recently become best-blogging-friends-forever...you should know that I used to live in South Korea. It's an important fact because it's the whole reason I started making cookies in the first place. I used to make CAKES for crying out loud. And then my oven in South Korea was only slightly larger than an EZ Bake oven. So I started making cookies. And one day, some firemen knocked on my door and jumped off my balcony. Anyway, now you're all caught up.

Apples are kind of a big deal in South Korea. Like, they INDIVIDUALLY BAG each and every apple while it is on the tree in the spring to keep bugs away from the apples as they grow. I've never had that much foresight in my entire life. Much less that kind of work ethic. I plant a garden every spring and water it for a couple of weeks and then I get bored and can't figure out why I never actually get any vegetables. I even HAVE an apple tree and not only do I not individually bag every single one of the 7 apples it produces...I also don't pick them. It's not really my fault. See, 2 of them actually "fell off" the tree all by themselves in their excitement while watching my children play baseball a little too close to the apple tree. 1 of them just got weird and brown. 1 of them never really got any bigger and it's hard as a rock. My littlest daughter picked one of them in the middle of July and will pretty much avoid all apples for the rest of her life after that unexpected little surprise when she tried to eat it. And that leaves exactly 2 apples. And if I pick them, then the tree will be all alone. It will be an empty-nester. And I'm just not sure I'm ready to put it through that kind of emotional turmoil right now.

So...you know... I made apple bushel cookies instead. If you want to make some, you'll need to print out this graphic and make some royal icing transfers.

1. With medium consistency tan icing and a #3 tip, pipe two horizontal lines for the top and bottom of the bushel basket. Let it dry for 15 minutes.
2. Add thick vertical lines, evenly spaced across the basket and let dry for another 15 minutes.
3. Fill in the remaining vertical spaces with the same icing. Let dry for another 15 minutes...you know the drill.
4. Pipe a small handle in the center of the basket. Grab some medium consistency red icing and pipe some random blobs of icing all over the top of the cookie. (Use old icing if you want it to have dents like mine.) (Don't actually be like me. Dented apples are weird.) (And probably not so healthy if we're being completley honest.) Let the icing dry for another 15 minutes.
5. Fill in the spaces between the apple blobs with the same red icing. You don't have to be perfect, just get some icing on there.
6. Immediately place your RI transfer apples on top of the wet icing.
7. Add a handle with thick brown icing and a #1.5 tip. Add tiny little stems to the top apples with the same icing. Put a #1.5 tip on some green icing and pipe tiny little leaves all over the place. Let dry for 3-4 hours.
8. Brush some brown food coloring across the slats in the basket.

LilaLoa

The Cookie Artist

Georganne Bell is the mess maker and cookie decorator behind the cookie blog LilaLoa. Obsessed with color and texture, she has been experimenting and creating with cookies and icing since 2010. She also gives plenty of unsolicited advice and occasionally does laundry before it becomes strictly necessary.

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